


you still got that story, tell it every morning

by SyllableFromSound



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: (or at least post-pttm), Anxiety, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, I don't know what else to tag this, Nymphs & Dryads, Post-Canon, Sleepy Cuddles, Sleepy Kisses, it's just self-indulgent fluff about happy lesbians idk what to tell you, this is literally just an excuse to write girls cuddling in bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 13:11:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17060402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyllableFromSound/pseuds/SyllableFromSound
Summary: "Sloane nuzzled her neck, which was already flushed with laughter. Hurley noticed that her skin, at the moment, did not have the rough feeling of the bark that sometimes grew over it. Instead, she felt more like the new wood of a young tree, flexible and supple. "Stay here," she said in an almost-whine, squeezing Hurley to her like a teddy bear as she settled back onto the pillow. Hurley would bet every cent in Goldcliff's bank vaults that she was playing up her sleepiness for sympathy."Though they may not strictly have to, some dryads sleep. Some even like to sleep in. Some like sleeping in more than others. (Dumb fluffy Hurloane with just a bit of angst.)





	you still got that story, tell it every morning

As always, she woke with the sun. That wasn't a dryad thing, had nothing to do with the fact that she had a sixth sense--and a seventh and an eighth--about the natural world nowadays. It was a her thing. Hurley had been in the habit of it long before everything that had happened. It just so happened that now, when the honey-colored light of dawn dripped in through the blinds, she felt flowers unfurl around her head, and the sap beneath her skin ran warmer.

Her mother used to call her Sunshine because of it. Sloane still did, but only in Elvish. _Aure._ Though that was only when she felt particularly generous. Mostly, she called Hurley crazy for getting up so early on purpose.

Aside from the sunlight, Sloane was the first thing she saw when she woke. Of course, she was still sleeping. She was never the first up if she could help it. (And if she was, it meant she was still reeling from a nightmare.) One of her arms was at her side, the other stretched above her head and sprawled over the pillow. Hurley smiled as she saw the new day's soft rays touch her cheek and give it a sheen like that of polished walnut. Sloane's chest did not rise and fall, because none of them needed to breathe anymore. (That had taken some getting used to. In the first few weeks after the change, panic had risen like water to fill up the cavity in her chest every time she woke to find Sloane not breathing. Then she would remember.) But Hurley saw her feathery lashes twitch and flutter as she dreamed.

She couldn't resist moving aside some strands of hair that had fallen over Sloane's right eye. Sloane's nose wrinkled as she lightly brushed against it. She sniffed, made a ridiculous noise in the back of her throat like something halfway between a groan and a purr, and nestled her face deeper into the pillow. Hurley breathed out the quietest laugh she could.

Before, she would have been out of bed by now, already dressed for a jog. These days, she lingered in bed, in the shared warmth of two bodies. She stayed long enough to watch the golden, molten rays of dawn solidify into the sharper, brighter light of day. When, at last, she decided to get up, she shifted her body slowly until she was out from under the covers, careful not to make the mattress squeak.

She had one foot already on the floor when she felt a hand in hers. Turning around, she saw Sloane peering at her, eyes half-lidded and still cloudy with sleep. Hurley smiled and went over to her, touching their foreheads together. She felt Sloane's contented sigh against her lips when they kissed. "Good morning, beautiful," she whispered after they pulled apart. "Sorry if I woke you."

Sloane brought their lips together once more. The kiss was languorous, her eyes still closed, and she was slow to pull away. "Babe," she mumbled, "come back to bed."

Hurley chuckled and gently touched her nose to Sloane's. "Nah, I'm gonna get some exercise." Then she added with a smirk, "Unless you want to come with me."

"Ew," she answered, voice heavy and sluggish with exhaustion.

Hurley snorted. "That's what I thought." She pecked Sloane on the forehead one last time before turning away. "Then I'll see you in a bit."

Before Hurley could fully sit up again, a pair of long, thin arms wrapped around her waist and yanked her back down. She landed on the sheets with a soft whump and, before she could protest, had her cheek smushed unceremoniously against her girlfriend's side. "Sloane!" she screeched in between the giggles that bubbled up out of her. "Come on, let me up!"

Sloane nuzzled her neck, which was already flushed with laughter. Hurley noticed that her skin, at the moment, did not have the rough feeling of the bark that sometimes grew over it. Instead, she felt more like the new wood of a young tree, flexible and supple. "Stay here," she said in an almost-whine, squeezing Hurley to her like a teddy bear as she settled back onto the pillow. Hurley would bet every cent in Goldcliff's bank vaults that she was playing up her sleepiness for sympathy.

"Why?"

"Still tired."

"So go back to sleep."

"Can't, unless you're here."

Hurley rolled her eyes, still jittery with laughter. "You don't need me to go to sleep." She squirmed out of Sloane's grip and tried to move away again. "Anyway, you know I can never go back to sleep again once I'm awake. Now I'm--Sloane, seriously, don't--" And like that, three times her weight's worth of half-elf flopped over on top of her and successfully pinned her to the mattress. "Oh, you fucking asshole."

Above her, Sloane chuckled. She felt the laughter resonate inside herself. "I let you get away with murder," she grumbled, grinning.

"You always did."

Hurley turned back to look at her. "Listen, if I'm staying in this bed, we're going to do something more fun than sleeping." To her satisfaction, for the first time all morning, Sloane's eyes snapped open fully. All of a sudden, they looked awake.

She turned onto her back so she could look up at Sloane more easily. Smirking, she reached one hand up to rest on the back of Sloane's neck. The other slipped under her lover's waistband, her finger trailing lazily along the line of fine hair that started at her navel and ran down. Sloane shut her eyes slowly and let out a breath that shuddered slightly.

And then, while she was distracted, Hurley wriggled out from under her and scurried out of the bedroom. "I win!" she called lightly from the hall.

"Hey! That wasn't fair!"

Hurley laughed as she walked away. It was, in fact, a little unfair, but she would make up for it later. They both appreciated delayed gratification.

She stepped into the kitchen that they never used. Neither of them had any reason to eat, and food lost all its taste on their almost wooden tongues. She stood for a few minutes in the square of sunlight cast from the window onto the tile. Energy tingled in her limbs and leaves sprung from the tips of her fingers.

She glanced at the couple of small, potted saplings sitting near the windows. They were originally cuttings from the towering tree in the city center--their tree--that Hurley had magicked into growing up quickly. It hadn't taken them long to realize that, as dryads, they would become weak if they spent an appreciable amount of time away from the ever-blooming cherry. She and Sloane had taken one look at each other and one look at the threads of dusty road that stretched miles into the desert and had known that wouldn't work. They got creative. So long as they were near a living part of the tree, or an offshoot of it, they would be fine. (Sloane had figured that out, but she had asked Hurley to use her powers to make the cuttings grow.) They always took a pot with them when they went out in one of the wagons, and by now had almost gotten over the silliness of strapping a tree into the backseat. Another stayed in their house, which they had selected specifically because it was in a quieter area of the city, away from the bustling center at the meeting place of the rivers.

She could hear the potted plants. They whispered with voices like wind hissing through long grass. Trees told stories all the time, quietly recounting all that they had seen in their many years. She had learned that, since the change. She shushed the saplings gently, and they quieted. The ability to understand plants didn't bother her, but Sloane disliked their murmuring. One late night, she had told Hurley, not making eye contact, that the Sash had sounded the same way. Susurrus.

Footsteps padded up behind her. "Hey, you got up!"

Sloane came up next to her, and Hurley had to bite back a laugh at the overdone pout on her face. "That really was a dick move," she grumbled. But she still stood close enough to Hurley for their arms to touch.

Hurley was about to make a retort when she looked back at Sloane and saw the scale-like patches of bark growing on her body. They would form a tough outer layer for protection, only there was no clear danger here. It was an expression of anxiety--she knew her lover well enough to know that. It was just like Sloane's other, equally subconscious habit of wrapping her arms around her belly when she got nervous as though to shield her core. She was doing that now, too. A defensive gesture, albeit one that would have no effect against the threat of her own thoughts corroding her from the inside.

"Are you okay?"

Sloane did not respond for awhile, simply furrowing her brow at the window. Outside, the city had woken fully. Bits of muffled conversation could be heard over the constant din of footsteps on the sidewalk and carts rolling in the street. Without warning, she blurted at last, "Are you happy?"

"Yes." Hurley's response was instantaneous.

"I was just thinking...you didn't have much of a choice in all this. Up to and including being, you know, immortal. Well, sort of immortal."

"Alive as long as the tree's alive. Which--" She paused to tap her knuckles against her head. "--it will be for a very long time."

"Did you just 'knock on wood' by knocking on yourself?"

"Too much?"

"Terrible. That was maybe your worst joke ever." Nonetheless, Sloane's lips, which had been pressed into a thin line, loosened into a smile. "What I'm saying is our entire lives changed in a literal flash, and now you're spending sort-of forever as a lady with tree powers, and you didn't really have a say in your whole fucking existence being turned on its head."

"Being a tree-powered sort-of immortal is objectively pretty fucking rad, you know."

"Has its downsides," Sloane murmured. "You know that."

"So did my old life. And I can't even explain to you how happy I am to leave that behind."

There was quiet for another few long moments. She almost thought that Sloane was ready to drop it when she said, in a near whisper, "And you're okay being stuck with me all that time?"

"What?"

She took a deep breath and went on, "We're sort of...bound, I guess? We're going to go through our whole lives being connected, since we're both tied to that cherry tree. And that's...I know that's what I want, definitely, but it's kind of a lot to ask of you..." She trailed off. Hurley stared at her for awhile, at the long and dextrous fingers that still set her off tingling when they brushed her cheek, at the downcast eyes that were the same color as the leaves peeking out through the dark hair.

Then she shook her head a little and playfully shoved Sloane in the chest. "You dumb lesbian, I drove off a fucking cliff for you. Did you really think I wasn't in this for the long haul?"

Sloane laughed, loudly, partly out of something like relief. Her expression relaxed instantly. Hurley grinned and wrapped her arms around her, standing on tiptoes enough to bury her face in Sloane's chest. More quietly, Hurley continued, "Listen, what you're saying isn't true. I made the choice to change my whole life when I decided I wanted us to be together, way before any plant magic. And gods, Sloane, you have no idea how happy I am that everything in my life got turned around. I...sometimes I just stop in my tracks and think about whether it's really possible that I can be this lucky, or if I'm imagining it. I never even thought we'd be able to live together and be open like this, let alone have all the time in the world to enjoy it. It's like it's too good to be true."

"I think that too," Sloane said.

"I know." And she did. She sometimes ribbed Sloane over how clingy she'd gotten since the incident with the Sash. How, whenever they were in the same room, they had to be touching. How she became disappointed even when Hurley left the bedroom in the morning. It seemed that, for Sloane, feeling Hurley solid against her was like pinching herself to ensure that she wasn't dreaming, that both of them were, really, still there, despite everything. Hurley knew, because she felt the same way.

"Well, it is true," Hurley said. She held on a little more tightly. "I've got you now."

**Author's Note:**

> Did you know that, according to D&D lore, dryads actually do not have bark on their bodies at all times? Barkskin is a spell that they can cast to up their AC, but otherwise they're not necessarily covered in bark.
> 
> Anyway, sometimes ya just gotta write some tooth-rotting fluff. Sometimes that fluff incorporates the inspiration you got from reading the 5e Monster Manual and that's just fine and dandy.
> 
> Thank you so much for checking out this fic!!! Your kudos and in particular your comments are much appreciated.
> 
> Also, the title is from "Silhouettes" by Colony House.


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